Geocaching in Shropshire and beyond…

Bolton, Ramsbottom and the River Irk series

Last week’s Plan B became this week’s Plan A so it was off to just by the side of Bolton town centre to try the new series in Leverhulme Park and beyond.

We soon arrived and parked up on the road at the northern end of the trail. We’d have a look on Google Earth and it all looked bike-able, so out the bikes came from the Jeep.

The first couple of caches were really easy, including one called something like ‘Sit Down’, where there was only one bench anywhere near GZ. It does not get any easier than that!

After that, it was down the hill to the road at the end and then a back-track along the riverside to the Large sized cache on the trail. We had to walk the plank over a stream to get to this one, which we both enjoyed. Great to see a HUGE box for the cache too!

On returning to the bikes, it was clear I’d picked up a fast puncture in my back tyre. Drat! We did not have the repair kit with us so we’d have to walk the rest of the trail, pushing the bikes.

The rest of the trail was uneventful, apart from a really nice hide at ‘Red or Grey’. I bet you can guess what animal the cache container looked like ;-).

We then headed off to Ramsbottom, picking up 4 previous DNF’s on the way. Very satisfying to clear up DNF’s. In Ramsbotton we were treated to a steam train puffing it’s way past us as we found the Sidetracked cache there.

Next, we got a very unexpected FTF on a new cache by the river. Good stuff!

A few more caches and we headed off towards the M60 and the new River Irk series. By the time we arrived, it was starting to get dark so we headed off with torches in our back-pack, just in case.

Lots of easy finds here, apart from the second cache which we later found out had been un-published and retrieved by the owner, so it was no wonder we could not find it! Apparently it involved a new screw being put in a tree, so we can understand why it was un-published.

All too soon it was dark and we’d completed the series, so set off for home as we were right by the M60 (handy planning that ;-)).

On the way home, we got off the M6 at Sandbach to find a cache we’d DNF’d last weekend (it had been put back by a cacher some distance from where the GPS was telling us it was).